


If I Only Had A Heart

by robotboy



Series: The Scorpion [3]
Category: The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Ficlet, M/M, POV Second Person
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-30
Updated: 2017-05-30
Packaged: 2018-11-06 09:17:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 310
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11033232
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/robotboy/pseuds/robotboy
Summary: You are made of magic. He is made of iron.





	If I Only Had A Heart

**Author's Note:**

> A ficlet from three years ago I stumbled across on tumblr. Set sometime between the later chapters of _The God Machine_.

Satisfaction isn’t in your nature.

Curiosity always drags one of you or the other from the bed before the night is through. Tonight, you slip away, ignoring the way the sheets tug under Tony’s clenching fist.

There’s always a plan. Your plans have plans. To plan, you must know. And  _this_ , not knowing what  _this_ is, tears you from Tony before you can be torn yourself.

There are ways to find out. You take your runes.

_Nothing good ever comes from scrying_ , your mother told you.

_Nothing good ever came from me_ , you would tell her now.

You twist the runes around the table, but again, Halgaz, again, Tiewaz, again, Mannaz. Trouble. Betrayal. Wanting.

The same pattern repeating; a plan bigger than you are. Loki, clever Loki, mistrustful Loki; you understand entropy. This is never going to last. It does not last a night, and it cannot last a lifetime, but you must  _know_. You must know what you can have of that heart.

You are both destroyers, and time a greater destroyer than that. Better to destroy it than to have it snatched from you. That is what you can plan.

You move the runes around, searching for the secret. You, so set to know Tony’s heart, and to learn how to break it; you do not immediately see the spaces between the signs. The emptiness.

Loki, clever Loki. You knew and you knew and you knew. You knew from the first moment you saw him and you’ll know in the last one.

Tony never had a heart.

You are made of magic. He is made of iron. He is not the one who will be destroyed.

You sweep the runes away, sliding back into Tony’s arms, but the empty space is still there.

You never make it through a whole night. Perhaps, then, a night will be enough.


End file.
